Beet And Goat Cheese Salad With A Passionfruit Dressing

I love beets for their earthy and sweet flavour and they make every meal they are in hearty. Roasting them makes them even sweeter tasting. They are so good for you too! They are wonderful in a salad and great with a tart dressing. This salad places the beets among fabulous ingredients that bring out the beets finer qualities. Nigella Lawson is a genius and this is a classic example of that. Her pairing the beets with the passion fruit is perfect. The passion fruit lends its tartness well and the goat cheese adds creaminess and a salty tangy edge.

I just made a couple of tweaks to the recipe out of necessity more than anything else. I used fresh chopped mint instead of dill because I didn’t have any at the time. I thought it was fabulous but the dill would be just as. I also added a little honey to the dressing as I always do to all my dressings and it was lovely. It just accented the sweetness of the beets and added a touch of extra fragrance.

I made one ‘mistake’ though as you may have spotted. By spooning the dressing on after everything is already plated, you do make the cheese turn quite a bright yellow. It doesn’t do anything to the flavour but aesthetically you might not like that, so the alternative is to toss the beets with the dressing before plating and then top with the cheese. So you live you learn!! What if you don’t have goat cheese or don’t like it – this salad would be equally delicious with feta but will loose the creaminess of the goat cheese. It’s a good alternative though. I’m sure you will love this very sophisticated salad. I loved the dressing and it’s crazy that I never thought to use passion fruit in it – it’s the perfect balance of acidity with a touch of sweetness and all that wonderful flavour. I will definitely be making it again. Enjoy!

Ingredients

6 small to medium beets

2 passion fruit

1 tbsp of olive oil

1 tbsp of honey or maple syrup

Salt and pepper to taste

100 grams of goat cheese crumbled

Chopped mint for garnish (chopped dill as an alternative)

Directions

For the beets

Preheat the oven to 350 ° F

Wrap each individual beet in foil and place on a baking sheet and roast for approx 1 hour or until they are cooked through – test by sticking them with a sharp knife.

Once they are done let them cool as they are wrapped and on the baking sheet

Once they are cool enough to handle peel them by squeezing the skin off - it should come off quite easily. Any parts that are difficult to come off you can trim off with a knife or a peeler. Then chop them into bite sized pieces and plate.

For the passion fruit

Cut them in half and scrape the insides of the fruit onto a mesh sieve over a bowl to catch all the juice. Once in the sieve used the back of a spoon to swirl the seeds around pressing them against the sieve to release all their juices.

Once you have all the juice for the two passion fruit whisk in the honey and olive oil and season dressing with salt and pepper

Top the beets with the crumbled feta and spoon the dressing over them. Alternatively you can toss the beets alone with the dressing and then top with the cheese for a prettier finish (cause the cheese will go yellow)